Isaac Dunbar Takes Our Pop Quiz
office gave Isaac an impromptu pop quiz where there are no wrong answers... except, of course, the wrong ones.
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office gave Isaac an impromptu pop quiz where there are no wrong answers... except, of course, the wrong ones.
Last Thursday night, Gunn hosted a listening party at Goldbar — a venue that perfectly matched the theme of the album: luxury. Here, we saw some familiar faces who popped out to support the rapper, such as Tremaine Emory, Benny the Butcher, and more.
office sat down with Gunn to discuss the making of And Then You Pray For Me, his end to studio albums, and what’s next for the Buffalo, New York rapper.
How was the listening party for you, and what’s been the feedback so far?
The listening party was dope because I never have listening parties. I never have parties at all. It was cool to see a lot of my peers, day-one-supporters, and family come out…It was super dope. I want you to hear the album all the way through and pay attention to the art.
Where was the album created?
It was done in Paris, Copenhagen, Denmark, and so many different parts of the world. I went to Athens and Santorini, Greece. I was just in the zone. Paris Fashion Week inspired me in January, like the first time I went in January 2020 with Virgil. I had that same feeling again. It was my first time since Pray for Paris. Not to sound corny, but it was the spirit of Virgil. He wasn’t there physically but spiritually. Let’s finish what we started.
Does scenery give you a lot of inspiration?
For sure. That was one of the top reasons why I did Pray for Paris. Leaving the country and going to a place like Paris is mind-blowing because I’m from East Side Buffalo. A lot of people will never see the Eiffel Tower in their life.
I’m hearing that this is your last album. Is that true?
It’s my last album as far as making over 20 songs, 15 songs of a full-body album. I’m more into making a song today and dropping it tomorrow like the Soundcloud, raw Griselda days. Instead of focusing on an album, only dropping once a year, and putting all of that energy into trying to present one project, I’m like fuck that. I might make a song and drop it tomorrow, even though my album just came out. I finally have people’s attention. Some people love it, some people hate it. They don’t even see the bigger picture, they’re just worried about today.
What does this mean for Griselda?
I’m never going to stop curating. That’s the thing about my team. If I call Conway the machine right now and say, ‘Pack your bags, we’re going to Poland for a month and about to record,’ he’ll be like, ‘Let’s go.’ Griselda is a family. When you sign to Griselda Records, it doesn’t mean you’re signing your life away to Westside Gunn; it means you’re my family.
I want to talk about the album cover of Caravaggio’s The Entombment of Christ. The late Virgil Abloh created it?
As soon as I was done with Pray for Paris, V told me to send a picture of all my chains individually. I laid my chains out, and he started sending me different art pieces with the chains on. At first, I wanted this to be kind of a trilogy series and have Mona Lisa represent the Pray for Paris series. I got the blessing from his family and everyone involved. Unfortunately, he passed. When I was going to do part two, I didn’t have the energy to do it. The time wasn’t right. I felt weird even trying to do it, it wasn’t even a thought. I let it (the covers) breathe for a while and get some air. Like I said, once fashion week came around this time, it felt like the time. He (Abloh) sent me there again.
I think it’s important for Black people to travel the world, especially where they’re least expected.
Especially because nobody’s even seen a motherfucker from East Side Buffalo. We’re a different breed. We never get respected because we’ve always been in no man’s land. I never took offense to it. I’m just going to work harder than everybody I know and put my city on – and I accomplished that.
Because Pray for Paris and And Then You Pray For Me albums are similar, are the albums correlated?
This is the sequel, but I didn’t want to call it Pray for Paris Part II. When I made Hitler Wears Hermes Part II, I made a song with Eric B., and in the song, I say, ‘Pray for Paris, then you pray for me.’ This was a line I said a decade ago.
There is an interlude in the album of Tyler, the Creator, saying you’re one of the reasons he wants to continue rapping. How does that make you feel?
It’s a blessing because that’s what I’m here for. Some people only come into this shit for money and with hidden agendas. I came into this shit so pure, I always did it my way. I’ve never compromised my art. I always stuck to my heart. I basically controlled my own destiny all the way through.
Now that you’re over long studio albums, what’s next for Westside Gunn?
I’m excited to just watch my kids grow. I have a daughter that’s only two and a son that’s four. This is the most I’ve ever been away from home, but they came with me everywhere. I’m not the only one who went to the Pyramids; they rode a camel, too. Now, I’m just gonna have fun. There’s no more pressure on me to do full albums. I can just give you art when I want, how I want, and when I want. I think it’s going to be even better. You’re going to get a better version of Westside Gunn. Long live Michelle, long live Virgil.
After teaching himself the music and songwriting process from scratch, Guy released his debut project Who’s Taken Time?! Act I — a reflection of the self. Now he brings a new layer to his artistry with the project’s B-side, Who’s Taken Time?! Act II — a departure from the “I” and newfound focus on the “we.” office sat down with Guy ahead of his first headline show in New York City to peel back the layers of his artistry, diving into Philadelphia’s influence on his sound and learning to embrace vulnerability.
Starting at the beginning, we grew up in the same place and I feel like a lot of your craft now is shaped by that upbringing. How did growing up in Philly shape your creative outlook?
When I first started to really think that music was the thing for me, I had a lot of resistance to even thinking about Philadelphia in the context of my creative process and my music. I think I felt a lot of resentment towards where we grew up. So I kind of spent my first year in LA being very ego-driven. It wasn't until I put out the first part of this larger Who’s Taken' Time?! Act I that I realized everything was really coming from that place. I was reflecting on relationships that I had sort of fallen out of touch with and, generally, that separation from East Coast and West Coast. And I think through starting to write a lot of records with that lens, I realized that I was totally wrong and I was writing from a very dark place. It was a very self-centered, self-focused place. There were a few big moments since then, like going back East and reconnecting with my brother, that changed my perspective. We had gone to the Brandywine River back in West Chester and had a day. It was fall, so the water was freezing cold, but it was this really amazing moment. This is my big brother and I hadn't seen him for almost two years. And also that river carried all these memories to us from when we were younger — but it was a place that we never really thought about as this sacred, special place. But when we were there together, we felt like there was some sort of — it sounds crazy — but some spirit amongst us. It brought me close to the land that we were raised on and it was a crazy turning point for me. I kind of switched up my whole flow. I scrapped the back half of the project and I rewrote everything after that journey back home.
And these new songs on Act II are all about community. They're about the ‘we;’ they're about togetherness. It was telling stories that weren't just about myself or my struggle, whatever that is. It was an appreciation for everyone that's there for me in my life. And I think also sort of a quest for community, bringing people in and stepping outta myself. I also just think it’s cool to care about things. I mean, I always cared and had so much love for home, but I think I just was able to finally remove the resentment and realize that this place is actually so important for me and my growth and it's not something that I want to really erase from my past.
If you could go back and tell high school Noah anything, given your accomplishments now, what advice would you give him?
I think that I was very scared. I felt like there was only one practical path and that was just getting the four-year degree and not really leaving a lot of time to reflect on what I really wanted to do. I think it was really hard for me to be fearless about being vulnerable. I was so afraid of being vulnerable and sensitive around other dudes in our grade. You know, there were social structures at our school, at least to me, in my head. I think I had a hard time relating to that. So I would just tell him to just be very fearless about the things he loved. I always loved music. I always loved film and the intersection of those two things. And I always loved singing. And I think towards the end of high school, I got a bit more open to kind of embracing those things.
But there were so many years where I held back when I was really pushing for basketball. That was, initially, the thing I wanted to try to do in college. I always think back to this instance. I was posting these Vines of me singing and — this is so crazy that I'm telling you this story. But I was thinking about it the other day; I had posted a Vine beatboxing and then I did a little singing moment. It was this cute little vibe. And then my basketball team saw it when we were traveling for an away game and I just got roasted into oblivion. I was just like, 'Okay, no music.' I was beatboxing for the acapella club though, 'cause that was still kind of 'cool.' That was sort of permissible. But it took me a really long time to break that circuitry. I think it's about just being fearless with my belief system and not being afraid to be a vulnerable dude. Being vulnerable and being sensitive doesn't make you weak. I think that's being a man. That was also a lot of what this project was for me — thinking about my masculinity in those terms as well.
When you're 16, it just seems, I guess at the moment, so much cooler to be like everyone else. And sharing music, sharing writing, sharing anything that is an art is really personal. I think that when you're that age, you don't want to let people see those parts of you. And then you get older and realize it's so much cooler not to be like anyone else.
For sure. And now that I've had time to sort of reflect on it, I've also found so much love in my heart for everyone we grew up with. I see them on my timeline and it makes my day to see what everyone is doing now. So I think it's also recognizing that this path isn't this miraculous thing that I'm doing. It was what I was supposed to do. You're supposed to create and make art and do that to the best of your ability, but there are also really incredible things that other people are doing too. We're all just figuring it out.
How did it feel to record your debut EP from your childhood bedroom, after experiencing such a life transition and returning back to where it all started? That was in 2021 — how have you changed since then?
It was such a wild experience. So I was going to NYU and then when everything went online, I just couldn't justify paying an NYU tuition. And then there was an opportunity for work so I went home. I was very fearful of fully committing to music. But through this bizarre kind of silver lining of the pandemic, it sort of forced that hand for me. And I went back home 'cause I didn't have anything to do, like all of us. Every day I had this setup — and this is such a privilege, right? The ability to have my parents host me and support this new creative thing. I'd never recorded myself before. I had no equipment. I'm like a grandpa with technology, so I had to learn the bare essentials of how to just get my voice on a microphone and I was using Garage Band. I had this $15 Walmart microphone and I wasn't taking it seriously — it wasn't a very professional sound. But I was really able to learn a lot about songwriting. And I think I started to find my voice through that project. It was four records I had made over a span of maybe three or four months before moving to LA.
That was also around a time when I really started to do a lot of music listening as well. Music from Philadelphia. I really fell into this whole deep dive during that year. Philly’s music history is just so rich and I had always grown up listening to Motown and loving it. But I didn't even really know where these songs and these sounds came from. I had gone to a bunch of record shops in Philadelphia during that time and I would crate dig and find things that were inspiring to me. Hip-hop became a huge thing for me as well. I was studying a lot of East Coast hip hop and also a lot of Americana and folk music that came from Philadelphia. For instance, there's this one artist who has really bled into my whole listening experience and the inspiration for this whole Act II. Jim Croce was this Americana, folk singer and songwriter. An absolute legend that has some of the craziest hits — if you heard a Jim Croce song, you'd know. But he grew up right down the road; he had a house on the Brandywine. I kind of became a music historian over those months and fell in love with Philly music and Philly music history. I think that became the foundation of what my sound is.
Your sound is a unique blend of R&B, hip-hop, and soul. Who were some of the earliest artists you remember filling your playlists with?
The first CD I ever bought was this album called The Ecstatic by Mos Def. Mos Def is one of my favorite rappers of all time. I was very curious about music discovery from a really young age; I got that in the fourth grade. That album really shaped me a lot. But really the first music I listened to was my dad's Motown's greatest hit CD — it got stuck in his jeep when I was a kid. He was so resistant to getting a new car [laugh] so for pretty much the first 10 years of my childhood, it was the only thing we were listening to every time we'd go in the car. It was The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, just a lot of these classic soulful pop records from the sixties and seventies. That's the music that I always come back to. So most consistently, it's these songs that were super soulful and also just very catchy. But they were presented in a very creative way — with the vocal layering and the dynamics of it all. That all led me to think today, 'How can I make something that's a little bit more left of field, but that still has this sort of universality?'
What did you feel you were uncovering about yourself through that process of writing and creating Act I?
I started to notice, as I was moving through creating these songs, that I'm pretty good at self-isolating and cutting myself off from people. People that maybe really love me and want to be there to support me. But, for some reason, I was very resistant to that. And, at the time, I also thought that part of the craft of music-making was this idea of struggle. That starving artist mentality that I needed to adapt at all times in order to make the best music. I think I thought that music couldn't really spawn from a happy place, at least for me. I needed to struggle through life in order to find those golden nuggets. So I started to catch myself in the act of doing that. I met a lot of incredible people over my first year in LA — but it definitely was really hard. I was working multiple jobs and certainly coming to terms with the fact that this music stuff is not easy. I didn't have rose-tinted glasses anymore about it. I realized that this is a lot of hustle and definitely not for the faint of heart. And through making those songs, I kind of started to push away from people. I had a hard time really holding on to connections and I was spending a lot of time on my own. I got to this point where I felt like the best music needed more than just me coming in and servicing the records. I needed to tell stories that weren't so heavily inward-facing and brooding.
Tell me about one of the hardest songs to write from Act I — how did it feel to confront certain emotions in that process and really create professionally for the first time?
I'd say probably the song, 'Small Talk Carolina.' It was the last song I made for the project, but it was sort of my first moment where I was speaking on and speaking directly to Philadelphia, folks back home, and my feelings toward those things. Carolina was this fake muse that represented a lot of friends — I had a couple of people in mind, specifically, from my childhood. I used the Brandywine as this motif through it all. This idea of purifying and washing away. It was really difficult for me to write. It brought forth stories that were uncomfortable for me to talk and think about. But it became this turning point. Once I finished up the record, I was like, 'Okay, I think there's something to this.' It was my first moment of really speaking about anything beyond just myself. I was talking about other people. I was telling the story of what a privilege it is for me to be out here talking about myself and this sort of ego journey that I experienced. There are people everywhere who may feel the same way I did and want to express themselves creatively. But they may not have the means to get out and create and explore. It really comes down to what a privilege it is to be an artist. Or to have the ability to at least start and make this journey happen for yourself. So that was the first moment where I really started to think about community in those terms. I woke myself up from the idea that the world was against me.
I think a lot of artists eventually have that discomforting confrontation. It's this feeling that the work won't resonate with people unless it's coming from this deeply emotional or pity-invoking place. But you needed to go through the process of making Act I to come to that revelation. You mentioned that Act I was more of a meditation of the self, while your recently released Who’s Taken Time?! Act II is more collaborative. Tell me about some of the collaborations on this project and what they mean to you.
After I wrapped up Act I, there was a two-month in-between period where I made the decision that the five other songs that I thought were gonna be sort of the B-side of this project, didn't represent the story I wanted to tell anymore. It was a perspective change, even outside of the music, just generally in life. And I'm fortunate that my closest collaborator and executive producer is like my brother. I work on all my stuff very intimately with my roommate Choob — Devon is his name. We first met online and he was the first person to send me a beat pack. So I went to him first and I was like, 'Yo, I really feel like we need to refocus our efforts here and try to find some new songs to make because I just feel very exhausted by the ones we have.' I thought there was a better story to tell.
So we went up north to this little cabin in this town called Lake Arrowhead. We needed some sort of separator and we were there for about a month. We started inviting friends up from Los Angeles — session instrumentalists, other artists, my friend Amaria, Braxton, who's this saxophonist and one of my heroes. He's an incredible jazz musician. They all came up, even folks that weren't really specifically working on the records, just people to spend time with. And that became the overall ethos of the project — it became very clear that we wanted to do something that was very community-driven. And we wanted the records to sound that way, so we really leaned into a very live and raw sound. We tried to leave things very unadulterated where there's not a lot of reverb. There's not a lot of things that my vocals are hiding behind. Act I was so busy. So I think taking time and holding space for friendship and just slowing things down during our time in Arrowhead, also bled into the song structure generally too. We just let the moment breathe. So I genuinely think that the spirit of that experience, on a friendship level and on a human level, that exactly translated to what the records became.
I feel like when you take on a creative undertaking, you become so prone to doing so many things at once or trying to supplement one thing with another. And it's just interesting that you expressed how things became fuller when you slowed down.
Do you feel like you're able to still create space to be mindful and present and slow down? Or do you think that is something you wrestle with? Because for me, it's still a journey. There's a lot of growth there that needs to be done.
I feel the same way. I think it's really hard. I'm not really thinking about that first achievement because I'm already thinking 20 steps ahead.
That's the whole crux of what the project was. Taking time to appreciate your accolades or the milestone moments you're reaching. It was like, 'How are you taking time to actually process what's going on?' It's so hard when the finish line is always moving for us, you know? Which I'm sure it is for everyone — it's a universal experience — but I think you definitely feel that way when you're doing something that's a little bit more unconventional or creative.
This industry just breeds a lot of comparison. So I think that's also part of it and part of being present. It's near impossible to do so when you're also focusing on other people, but it's also near impossible not to do that as well.
I think that the ultimate lesson is that no journey is replicable. You have to just be so dauntless and recognize that my journey is my journey and however that shakes down, that's what it's gonna be, you know? And I'm gonna just keep putting the work in and that's really all you can do. I think we do our best work when we're feeling more and thinking less.
You studied film at a point in time, which explains your heavily artistic and narrative-driven visuals. How do these other elements, like your artistic persona and even your personal street style, shape you as an artist — especially in this social-media-driven era?
The bane of my existence has been short-form content. I think we're in such a bizarre world right now where all these new artists, including myself, are coming up in the TikTok era. But prior to this, there was the blog era. There was SoundCloud — but I think it was very show, not tell. Now it's very tell, don't show — and tell everything to everyone. Tell them daily and find the easiest, quickest, most clickable way to do so. And I think when you're the one doing all of the talking, you don't really leave much for yourself as the artist. Some of that magic and some of that allure kind of goes away. That's why I think it's so hard to build a brand in this TikTok era — at least it's been challenging for me. Of course, there are ways to do it and it's become a necessary tool. I'm always thinking, 'How can I use this to my benefit?' I don't have the answers to that yet, but for me, I need to still be very committed to not sensationalizing my music. I just like the idea of making a really cool music video even though it's not really an era for music videos right now because I don't think the industry really rewards a great music video in the way we used to. But for your core fans who really love your music, that still matters. The ability to pair a visual with the audio experience — those things have always been two-pronged for me. I grew up loving film. That was kind of my first joy but I didn't really take a lot of time to share those interests with other people.
On that note, if there was a movie about you, what would it be called and who would you want to play you?
Well, recently I've been trying to get into my acting bag. I've got a couple of scripts I've been reading. But I think a throwback rom-com A-lister would be cool. Like Paul Rudd. I'm a pretty goofy, awkward person and I think he would translate that well. In terms of the name, I think I would just call it Who's Taken' Time?!
The album itself embarks on a similar thematic journey, delving into the peculiar ways we change when we become passionately fixated on something — whether it's another person, the latest news, or those perennial, unanswered questions about life that we all contemplate.
Last month, office stopped by their Brooklyn-based studio to talk about yearning, hobbies, Shakers, and the divine.
What have you been up to?
Aidan Noell— We played some festivals and shows on the West Coast and Europe, which feels like a lifetime ago.
Ian Devaney— We were in Germany, then Poland, flew from there to San Francisco and did some West Coast festivals. There's this Baltimore show, then we have iNDIEPLAZA at Rockefeller Center put on by Rough Trade, the record shop. It’s an outdoor show, there’s a ton of bands, it’s going to be fun.
When you're not on the road, is there something you all love to do together? Aside from making music...
ID— I feel like as soon as we get off the road, we're all just pedal to the metal, always working or mixing something new. But when we're on the road...
AN— We really like eating, going to restaurants together, shopping together
Alex MacKay— We have a lot of common interests. We share music, podcasts, books, all that stuff.
Being on the road is sort of a liminal space in and of itself — you spend a lot of time in-between destinations. Does that allow you any creative freedom?
AN— We try to make the most out of the time that we have on the road, seeing things in-between cities or exploring the town we’re in. I always bring two books and say that I’m finally going to read, and then I get in the van and immediately I’m just sleeping, listening to music, and zoning out for hours at a time.
AM— Yeah, I like to tell myself that I can focus in the van to a similar degree, but it's definitely not true. I've been trying to crack that code a little bit, because we've been on the road around four months a year, and that's like — a third of my waking hours. So if I have other interests or relationships, I need to find a way to actively nurture those while I'm on tour.
ID— I kind of look forward to letting my brain brain off on the road. Because this time when we’re working on new songs — it feels like the busiest and hardest work — making sure the songs are fully thought out the first time you hit the stage with them.
AM— There’s the writing stage, when you’re in the world of ideas, which is fun. Although, if you have choice anxiety, like I do, there’s something very challenging about that sometimes. But then you’re in the recording phase, the world of technology. And finally, you're on the road, back in the physical world and its straightforwardness.
ID— At that point, you get to achieve the flow state in the live performance. That’s the ideal each night, to lose yourself in it.
AM— That's what I think is somewhat liberating when you’ve been stuck in the other two phases for a long time. Now, all we have to do is the thing. We know what the songs are. The real magic of performing — if there is such a thing — takes place when you've internalized everything, and then you start to focus what's happening energetically in the room.
AN— The goal really is to lock in with eachother — become the machine together, let yourself give up all of the thoughts going through your head.
Totally. That makes me think of bands like the Ramones — even if you don't listen to or understand the lyrics, you're still experiencing a profound rush of energy when you see them live together.
ID— They’re also a great example of a band that practiced so much. They would play their whole set backstage before they went on stage, so that when they went on, it was like they'd already done it.
I really love the imagery that’s been a part of the Strange Disciple lead up; it's so absurd, very in tune with our day-to-day. How did you figure out how you wanted to visually translate the sonic message of the record?
ID— Up until this record, all of the design work has just been me, even though I have no training in it. Thankfully, I knew that I wanted the vibe of the band to be rooted in a kind of minimalism — which was convenient because I couldn't do anything more than that. For this record, I wrote the song “Sole Obsession” and there was this line about a strange disciple in it, which felt like a title that could unite the project. Because so much of it is about obsession. It felt like a strange disciple represented what we become when we’re infatuated with someone and tie ourselves in knots.
A friend of ours connected us with the artist Christian Little, who collaborated with us on the painting on the album cover. It came together in a very cool and natural way.
AN— It’s also funny because the disciple's pose on the cover — it's basically an exact outline of Ian's hands. Ian had this very specific vision of the person in the house, so we took a picture of his hands and sent it to Christian. It's his hands, and several people have gotten them tattooed on their bodies.
The record makes me think about a book I've read a few times, Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson. She talks about desire and infatuation as a circumstance of proximity. Obsession as the distance between yourself and the thing you desire, and how shortening that distance until it’s gone depletes the initial infatuation — she paints obsession as a feeling that always exists outside of and adjacent to you.
AM— Yeah, she talks about the ice that melts in your hand.
Exactly. So, how did obsession become the thematic element of the project? Was it something realized subconsciously?
ID— When I sit down to write, I want to take myself to places where I have been feeling the most, in my own life and what I’ve witnessed in my friends’ lives. And I guess I must have really been on a mental kick about the times in life when you want something so bad — whether or not it's good for you to want it. Basically being between agony and ecstasy...
It's like you exist between death and salvation when you’re obsessed with something. It’ll either kill you or fulfill you.
ID— Yeah, exactly.
AM— That’s what I should've gotten you for your birthday, Eros the Bittersweet.
Aidan Noell— I did just get an Anne book because I'm obsessed with volcanoes.
Autobiography of Red?
AN— Yes, and I’m also reading a Susan Sontag book called The Volcano Lover, which is a historical fiction book, which is not something I’ve ever read by her — any fiction at all. It’s this beautiful love story that gets twisted in all directions around Mount Etna in the 1700s. It feels so much about yearning, love and these intense, fiery emotions, which aligns perfectly with the phase that we’re currently in.
ID— The thing that I like about yearning, and in particular, unrequited yearning — is that there’s almost a joy in the pain. It's the most alive you can feel because you’re feeling so much and that in itself is such a beautiful thing — to know that you are so alive, even if you’re also having an intense emotional experience. It makes you realize how profoundly you exist.
It’s interesting to realize that duality of existence, how you can be obsessed with the shadow of yourself — what you want to become part of you. Then, when it does, if you do get what you desire, the intensity dies out and you're out searching again.
AN— It’s a different state of being.
ID— I’ve been reading the book, I Love Dick, by Chris Cross. In it, this woman and her husband meet this man, become obsessed and start furiously writing him letters that they never send. So he becomes part of this bizarre love triangle that he has no idea about. But to them it’s this raging, passionate thing. They have these stacks of letters piling up and they’re contemplating ever even sending them to him.
AM— It’s that triangle of desire: you, the beloved, and the idea of yourself with them. When you meet them, you recognize that there’s a part of you missing, but in trying to fill that space with the beloved, it’s like they dissolve right in front of you.
AN— Because the reality will never be the same as the expectation. It might be better, but it's still never going to be what you perceive it would be, which awakens a void within you where you're like, "I thought I knew what I was, but now I don't." It's insatiable.
As if the hunger remains because you need your expectation of your existence validation? I didn’t think about it like that before.
AN— Yeah, I think it’s really interesting when people don’t let themselves experience those feelings, like people who marry their high school sweetheart. They just decide to be in a monogamous relationship and never allow themselves to experience those feelings as an adult.
AM— Or people channel it into something else. We were just at the Shaker Village yesterday, which is an intentional society that is completely celibate and doesn't allow marriage, don't allow sex or having children. The only way they continue their community is by fostering orphans, giving them the choice to remain in this very specific Protestant Christian sect.
ID— No kidding, like, “Hey, do you want to stay here or do you want to get laid?”
AM— Not an easy sell for a 15-year-old who has only known a life of labor. But yeah, I was just thinking about that a lot yesterday because they must have had to channel their desire towards their relationship with God and spirituality. There's probably some people who can do that and others who really struggle with that. I would say that I’m part of the latter, but it's a really amazing thing to think about.
AN— Yeah, there’s also those therapists or friends or family members that are like, "Try to watch a show, or why don’t you try knitting?" And that’s just not going to change my thought process. I can't funnel my energy that way.
There’s this need for us to categorize things and to interpret. There’s also this idea of human choices, creation and destruction — or destrudo and libido, the urge to create, the energy that arises from the Eros (or “life”) drive. Or to Freud’s point that all humans are driven toward death and destruction; self-sabotage is that, but so is something like marrying young and accepting that this is the life you’ve chosen to die with.
AM— There’s the religious urge to save yourself from certain things because they’re labeled as demonic or devil-work, which is understandable. Those things can destroy you. The highs can be high, the lows can be lows, but people also don’t talk about how cool the Devil is [laughs].
ID— He’s a good hang!
[Laughs] I mean yeah, it also feels like a commentary on the never-ending cycles we find ourselves in, an exaggeration of the masked life we've adopted as humans.
ID— Christian Little had used and iteration of the mask in one of his older paintings.
[Alex brings down the record for reference]
ID— Previous to that, I had all of these images of monks and other things, but once I saw the way he used these masks in his paintings, something seemed to click for me. A monk felt a little too serious, it just didn’t achieve this sort of absurd levity — the absurd places you find yourself emotionally when you feel so dedicated to something…
AM— A little bit like a clown.
ID— It’s what you were saying before that as soon as you sort of have this feeling once, it’s something you’re always seeking. I feel like, in the sequence of the album, the first song “Weak in Your Light” is pretty much the purest sort of love song that the band has ever written. Then the album ends with the song “I Will Never Learn.” In my mind, the record is a sort of roller coaster of highs and lows. There’s a sense of self-doubt and then an acceptance that you’re never going to stop doing this, so it loops back into the purest giving of yourself to something else, upon which everything begins again.
AN— In terms of the videos thematically, exposing the absurd nature of these obsessions in our video for “Too Much, Enough”, is much more heavy-handed in its absurdity than the “Soul Obsession” music video. It’s a song about the 24-hour news cycle and people who become obsessed with the rush of watching the news and want that feeling all the time. They seek out bad news to be pissed off about.
There’s the familiarity of an obsession. Sometimes you’re not chasing the beloved, but the feeling that you’re used to — of desiring something.
ID— Yeah, if you ask most people, they’re not going to say that they want to be pissed off about what some Congressmen did yesterday.
Sometimes it feels like I need something to do because I know I’m dying one day, so how do I pass the time while I’m here? Do I fill it with nothingness or some drama fed to me through this screen?
AN— [Laughs] Yeah, I know people who have MSNBC on all day long.
ID— Fox is what directly inspired the song, but then I did start to see a similar obsession on the left with Democrats. You kind of associate this mindset with Fox, but this is not a both-sides-ism, because Fox news is definitely, definitely worse —
AN— But the point is that we can all fall prey to being obsessed with bad news. During the election cycle, it was all anyone could talk about and that’s coming again, but I think we’re going to be better this time and learn from our social criticism.
AM— I think a lot of people are running from personal despair and it’s easier to move from that towards outrage. Outrage can feel more righteous, which I think is a much safer space away from yourself.
AN— In the Susan Sontag book, there’s a lot of this talk about the mob coming after French revolutionaries that were in Italy, and all the lower class people of the town who were coming to kill or steal shit from the bourgeoisie who were either for or against the Republic — they didn't actually want any social change, or the positive that could come of the Republic. They just got into the mob mentality and became addicted to coming together and screaming and putting someone on stake.
AM— People like to feel a part of something.
That's true, so they don’t have to feel so alone maybe.
Watch their newest music video below.